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Companies and brands are losing billions of dollars each year due to ad fraud, making it one of the biggest concerns for businesses and advertisers across platforms. After falling last year, the global ad fraud rate started rising again in 2022.

According to data presented by AugustaFreePress.com, the invalid traffic or ad fraud rate hit 17% in Q2 2022, up from 15.6% a quarter before.

Ad Frauds Will Cost $7B More than a Year Ago

Ad fraud schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with fraudsters using different tactics to generate illicit profits from advertising. Some use malware to generate clicks on digital ads without the user’s knowledge, while others deploy automated bots to drive fake clicks.

Statista and Fraudlogix data show that global ad fraud rates fluctuated between 19% and 24% in 2020 before falling to 14% in Q2 2021. However, by the end of last year, the figure had increased to 15.8%. After slipping to 15.6% in the first quarter of 2022, the global ad fraud rate jumped to 17% again.

The growing number of fraudulent ads continues driving the total ad fraud cost. According to a Juniper Research study, digital ad spending lost to fraud is expected to hit $68bn in 2022, $7bn more than a year ago.

The United States, Japan, China, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, the five countries most impacted by digital ad fraud, will account for 60% of total losses. 

According to a study, companies advertising in the US are expected to lose around $23bn to fraud this year.

The United Kingdom has the Highest Ad Fraud Rate Globally

Although the United States leads in total ad fraud cost, the United Kingdom has the highest ad fraud rate of all major countries. Last year, 17.8% of ad impressions from the UK were fraudulent. Switzerland follows with 17.4%, while Japan sits on the other side of the list, with 1.9% of ad impressions. In comparison, the ad fraud rate in the United States was 12%.

Analyzed by browser, Yandex recorded the highest advertising fraud rate in Q2 2022, with 29.4%. Opera ranked second, with 26.3% of all ad impressions on this browser being fraudulent. Google Chrome follows with 19.5%. 

According to the survey, Mozilla Firefox was the browser with the lowest ad fraud rate, standing at 13.5% during this period.